Choosing a target organization.

For a while I was struggling to decide what organization I wanted to do my social marketing project on. The primary organizations I was considering were the U.S. Census Bureau and the Ann Arbor Velo Club.

With the decennial census occurring this year the Census Bureau is working incredibly hard to get their message out about the importance of every household completing the Census form (you've sent yours in already right???) so that the government and researchers can have accurate information about the population of the country. So there is clearly a pressing need for a good marketing plan for this organization. Furthermore, as part of my degree requirements as a student in Survey Methodology, I will be completing a summer internship this year and it just so happens that I will be doing it at Census, so it is a very salient issue for me personally too.

The Ann Arbor Velo Club is a local organization that I am personally involved with, I train and race with their teams on nearly a daily basis, help recruit new members, organize workouts, work with sponsors/donors, and generally help out in any way that I can. This is a very small organization, with approximately 60 members last year and it is primarily led by two members who were elected by "Soviet" election to be President and VP. The club does not really have any marketing plan that it implements, relying almost entirely on word of mouth and the presence of the club name on our team uniform to generate local awareness. This year the club is trying to raise awareness among the local cycling community, and also raise capital from donors to assist with developing women's and juniors (under 18) bicycle racing (as those are two very under-represented communities in cycling).

While this was a difficult decision to make, I have decided to do my project on the Ann Arbor Velo Club because I feel that my efforts at developing a marketing plan will have the greatest real-world impact for a small organization that may actually implement some of my recommendations.

Social Marketing

This blog will detail my efforts at developing a marketing plan for a organization that provides a social good. This marketing plan will be developed in the context of Marketing 614 - 'Social Marketing'- at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business. At this point I'm planning to create a marketing plan for the Ann Arbor Velo Club, a local non-profit organization that I am heavily involved with.